A Strat to be precise.  However, this is where it gets weird.  It's a rebuilt Squier with new pickups and a custom flame paint job.  I think it looks rad, and it sounds and plays great!  Can't ask for much more than that!

And now... A couple pictures!

And now, the news!

First order of business, I'm announcing right now, officially for the first time the creation of my first solo EP!

Details:

• 5 Songs
• All original music
• Focusing more on the pop/acoustic/jazz side of my writing
• It will be released in May
• The first song will be up on February 1st
• Price - For you? Free!

Frequently Asked Questions:

• What's it going to be called? - I dunno.
• What's the concept? - I dunno.
• Is it going to have shredding on it? - Probably not.
• Will you sing? - Possibly.  Depends on if I get inspired to write words for certain songs or not.
• Who's recording it? - Me.
• Who's producing it? - Me.
• Who's... - Probably me.

And that concludes all the details I have about the EP.  Keep your eyes and ears posted right here so that you can be the first to know what's happening now!

Peace!
Mike

Music

Albums of The Year
Frost* - Experiments in Mass Appeal

I already called it back in January when this came out that it was my album of 2009.  That's held true for the remainder of the year. The writing and playing are all outstanding.  The songs never stay around for too long.  (An difficult task for a band associated with a genre known for 10+ minute songs that sometimes are brilliant and sometimes just need to be cut down by 7 minutes).  It works exceptionally as a whole, but also each song is brilliant by itself.  I think the biggest testament is that it has remained in my car for a full year now.  Nothing has lasted that long in the torture chamber of travel.

Just check it out if you're into prog.  Heck, even if you're not into prog, you probably will find something to like on there.

Club of The Sons - Young Quanta

This is an interesting one for me because I've followed these guys for years.  You see, almost 10 years ago there was this band called Earthsuit that I absolutely adored.  They only released one full record and a half done record, but both were filled with absolutely fantastic music.  After they broke up they went on to separate projects.  Some went on to form the rather popular Mute Math, the rest went to form the short lived band Macrosick.  After Macrosick, there was a new band that emerged called Club of The Sons.  No music was available for years.  Until one day, I saw on Myspace that they had a track up.  I listened to it a lot and decided that it was great.  Then earlier this year they finally released their first album.  It's easily one of the best pop (if you can even fully call it pop) albums I've heard.  Very quirky, but filled with great writing and playing.  Definitely worth checking out.

Chick Corea & Hiromi Uehara - Duet

There's not a whole lot that needs to be said about this album if you know who either of these people are.  Two of the most brilliant pianists on this Earth dialoguing for two hours.  Fantastic, fantastic album.

Between the Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect

This one is kind of surprising to me.  I was first exposed to BtBAM at the Progressive Nation tour 2008.  They opened up for Dream Theater and, at the time, I thought they were good, but very strange.  I eventually went on to hear their album "Colors" and fell in love.  The blend of prog and death metal was done so well that I couldn't wait to hear more.  I was very excited when I heard the new album was coming in October.  Bought it a month ago and I can't put it down.  There are some small things I don't like about it (the solos, for instance, are not up to prog metal standards in my opinion), but those things are easily overlooked in favor of the overall picture of a fantastic prog-metal album.  It's a wild ride from minute one to the end.  The final section of Fossil Genera may be one of the best things I've ever heard on a prog album.  Just epic.

Imogen Heap - Ellipse

Like many people, I was exposed to Imogen Heap on her album "Speak for Yourself".  I thought that album was quite good, but there were only a couple of tunes that really stood out to me on it.  However, Ellipse is the polar opposite in that respect.  There's not a single song on that album that is skippable.  The songs are all catchy in their own way, but there's still a great flow to the album that you rarely hear anymore.

Metroid Metal - Varia Suite

This is very unusual choice because against all this other stuff, it's certainly not the best.  But it's definitely one of my favorites simply because it's fantastic to hear all those songs realized with a full band.  Check it out!

Steve Morse Band - Out Standing in Their Field

I mentioned elsewhere that this is another very unusual choice for me, because I normally find Morse's material to be pretty bland.  However, this album has some great melodies, cool changes and lots of great soloing.  Here's hoping they keep it up!

Honorable Mentions
Dream Theater - Black Clouds & Silver Linings (Mostly for "The Count of Tuscany" and "The Shattered Fortress"  Both are excellent tracks, while the rest just sort of seems to meander with "Wither" being the main exception to that rule)
Chickenfoot - Chickenfoot

Biggest Disappointments
Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Nightcastle

This album serves as my choice for 2009's biggest disappointment for a variety of reasons.  The production is extremely bland leaving you with nothing to look forward to sound-wise.  The writing and performance is fairly atrocious on the vocal tunes, which more often than not overstay their welcome by several minutes.  A song with the same lyrics and same chord progression with little to no dynamic contrast makes for a dull listen.  This album is full of them, too.  It's very sad, because I have looked forward to this album for the past 4-5 years, and I know some people have looked forward to it for even longer than that.  Bad on you, TSO!

Regina Spektor - Far

As a Regina Spektor fan, I found this album very disappointing when compared to her early recordings.  Gone are the super quirky songs with lots of vocal embellishments and experimentation.  Gone is the real down to earth feel of the album.  Gone is the drumstick beating on the piano bench (well, maybe that's in there somewhere).  Her albums Songs,S oviet Kitsch, and Begin to Hope, are all fantastic records.  She seems to have lost that spark that was evident in all of those on Far.  Or even worse, perhaps her producers decided that they needed to recreate the success of Begin to Hope and told her to write more songs like Fidelity.  So she did.  Regardless of what happened, this is a very disappointing album.

Games

Batman: Arkham Asylum

I don't wanna say too much about this because I'm still playing it, but I'm positive that this is THE game of 2009 proper (more on that in a minute).

Shadow Complex

If you've played it, you know what this is all about.  Basically, to quote someone else, they made Super Metroid in 2009, and it's AWESOME!

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

This is sort of weird, because they basically take stuff from all the best SMB games (SMB, 3 and World) and stick it together with new levels.  As it turns out, that totally is the way to make a new Super Mario Bros. game.

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 4

While this is TECHNICALLY a 2008 release, it came out so late, that I barely consider it a 2008 title.  So yeah.  The reason I mention Batman as the best of 2009 proper is because Persona 4 is THE BEST GAME OF 2009!  What makes this weird is that I say this without having played a single minute of it yet.  How can I say that you ask?  This is how.  The Persona 4 Endurance Run inspired me to watch 100+ hours of a video game.  A dang good video game, too.  As soon as I finish Persona 3, I'll be putting in P4 and going to town.  Watch or play at your own risk.  It's fantastic!

And, I guess that concludes just about everything I wanted to cover.  I would include movies, but I didn't like anything I saw this year that was released this year.  So there.

Happy new year!  More content and news is coming soon!  Stay tuned.

Mike

Just want to wish everyone out there a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!  You'll hear from me only once more before the new year, so I hope your days are merry and bright, and I'll see you in 2010!

I also hear that 2010 is when "the future" officially begins, so I fully expect to see flying cars on January 1st.

Peace,
Mike

So here's the deal.  There's this crazy awesome new UStream app out for the iPhone.  I just got it, and instantly had an idea.  What if I tried it out on the band tonight, and did a test run at the gig tonight?!  So that's exactly what I'm going to do.

Around 8PM (EST) tonight, I'm going to try a live stream from my phone to this page.  Obviously since I'll be playing, I won't be able to monitor anything going on, so hopefully it will work without much of a problem.

So, as I said.  8PM tonight (Decemeber 17th) on UStream.  Check it out!

Also, before I go... any albums from 2009 that I need to listen to before 2009 is over?  I've heard a few, but I'm curious to know if there's anything that you've heard that just HAS to be heard.  Let me know!

Peace,
Mike

That's when I received my first project guitar.  No idea where it came from, but my boss stripped the parts off of it that he wanted to keep around for spares, and I said "hey, can I take that?".

So there it is.  Abilene is the brand.  Apparently (thanks to Google) they were a small subline for Samick.  Obviously this is a Strat-copy, so I'm excited to work on it, because getting practice in on this guitar will mean that working on my Strat will be easier.

I should also note at this point, that I have NEVER DONE ANY OF MY OWN GUITAR REPAIR!  This is a shame really, because I don't trust anyone else to work on my guitars, so I know that eventually they will all become ratty and I'll have to get them fixed up.  So that's another reason why I'm excited to have this thing I can tinker with.

So the first thing I did (as you can see in the picture) is take everything else off of it and learn as much as I could about the innards.  Frankly, the electronics of a Strat are a lot simpler than I expected.  I know next to nothing about electronical devices, but I understood just about everything when I was asking questions about it at work.

The next step was to get the nut off of the neck because it was pretty messed up.  So we tried to knock it out.

No dice.

So we tried to break a piece off so we could work the rest out.  But didn't go along so well.  After about 15 minutes of knocking against the thing, we were able to break it lose and fly off the neck.  Unfortunately, it took a little bit of the wood on the headstock with it.  It looked like whoever had this last put a new nut in there with superglue, thusly making it impossible to remove.

So first order of business in this repair effort is to glue that little bit of wood back on, and then after that's dried, glue a new nut in.

After that, I'll probably buy some new saddles for the bridge and put those on, and try to get it to play halfway decent.  After that, I'll rewire the pickups and output jack and see if it works.

Wish me luck!  If you want to follow just these posts, I've given you a couple options.  Just click on either of the links under the "Project Guitar" heading to your right if you want to view just the posts about the project or subscribe to the RSS Feed.

- Mike

It's set up like a forum so that you can create threads and ask questions.  I'm not requiring any signup right now, so feel free to post.  I will also be monitoring it heavily, so if spam starts to come in, I will require a signup.

I am also going to starting video lessons.  While not a new idea by any means, I would like your help to get me started.  What topic would you like to see covered?  Leave a comment either here or head on over to the lesson page and post in the thread entitled "First Video Lesson".

Thanks, and take it easy.
- Mike

Enjoy!
- Mike

Click on that and read it.  It's only two paragraphs.  Go on, I'll wait.

You read it?  Great, let's talk.

I'm going to start by saying that I whole heartedly agree with Mr. Rollins on the music of Jazz.  It has been (and probably will always be) relevent on some level thanks to what he refers to as "The Big Umbrella".  The idea of spontaneous creation, has and always will be a part of music regardless of genre.

But that is only speaking about the music.  Sonny also refers to an era of Piano Trios and people sitting around a club smoking and listening to the music.  He says, "if that is your conception of Jazz, then of course Jazz is not relevant".

The question I would like to raise at this point is a simple (albiet multifacted) question.

What is the place of Jazz in today's society?  In other words... What does Jazz have to do to sell out stadiums, pack in nightclubs, and fill our schools up with students thirsting to learn more about this music?  Is there anyone out there willing to think outside of the old world mentality?

Frankly, I don't have any answers.  For now, though I will continue attending my weekly Jazz Society Jazz Jams.  I will continue harassing my fellow teachers at work that they need to dig into the music and listen to it, study it, play it.  That seems to be all I can do for the moment.

So to answer Sonny Rollins question, what is Jazz to me? Well, Jamey Aebersold says that improvisation is "your voice".  If that is true then true Jazz is one or more individuals speaking without words.  Like a shared expression of a given moment.

What does Jazz mean to you?  Is it just background noise or does it speak to you on another level?  What do you think can be done to make Jazz truly relevant?

-Mike

So a couple things are going on.

Number one!  You can still vote for which version of Have You Met Miss Jones you like best and think should go on the demo CD.  To listen to the songs click here or scroll down.  To cast your vote, just leave a comment!  You don't even have to say anything specific.  Just give me a number.  The reason I'm letting you keep voting is because our plans for recording got postponed last week.  So, this week is our slated time.

Number two!  If you have noticed my calendar is a lot more full than it has been previously.  That's of course because of the Solid Gold gig, but also because I've started attending the Fort Pierce Jazz Society Wednesday Night Jazz Jams. (Man that's a mouthful!)  It's a fun place to hang out.  If you ever happen to be in the area, you should definitely swing by (no pun intended) and check it out.

Number three!  I've started trying to dump all the songs that I've had in my brain out onto both paper and recording so that I don't start forgetting them as I have a tendency to do.  I've been working on the first one (which is an acoustic tune, probably geared towards having vocals on it, though anything can happen) today.  I layed down a scratch acoustic track and started working on groove and arrangement ideas to fit the other instruments on my head onto the recording.  So hopefully by next week I'll have a rough version done to put up here for your listening pleasure.

And now that I've written you a short essay, I will bid you adieu, for the last hour of transcribing Charlie Christian solos has drained me of my last bit of energy.

The next blog might perhaps be a bit more philosophical.  Or perhaps esoteric.  Or maybe even a little existentialist.  Or I might just write about music and my weekly walkings through said art form.

Fare thee well!
Mike

(By the way, you can tell it's late because that last bit didn't make much sense)

Here's the deal.  A fellow I work with, Spencer Shepherd (a pretty beastly guitar player, might I add) and I have been practicing for a project.  A project that brings two of the finest guitar players in the Treasure Coast area together for a multi-genre duet.

It's called... well actually we don't know what we're going to call it yet, but there's still time for that.  Either way, we want to play live.  Doesn't matter where, we just want to play (and possibly make some money, too).  We will be covering a variety of styles from Classical, Jazz and Latin to Folk, Rock and even a little Fusion-esque jamming.

So how are we going to go about being able to play at places... Well, one thing we decided upon is to create a demo CD to show off a bit of what we can do to potential customers.  The track listing will include one solo song from each of us, and then two differently styled duets.

Here's where you come in!  This weekend, I'm going to upload three different takes of the tune "Have You Met Miss Jones".  One right now, one tomorrow and one on Sunday.  I'm still trying to work out the logistics of a good way to vote, but for now just comment to vote.  I'll leave the voting open until lets say... Sunday of next week (November 1st).  After that the votes will be tallied up and the winner will be put on the demo CD (which I'll also make available on here after we finish it).

So without further ado... Here's the first take of "Have You Met Miss Jones"!(thatIthoughtIcouldhavedonebetterbutheygottacommitright?)  Hope you enjoy!